That Emmet Wickersham is a real wiseacre, I tell you. I caught him stealing checkers off the board while I was looking at Lawrence Welk on the television set." "If he tries that just one more time, I'm calling the nurse."

Wise-acre is essentially synonymous with the terms jerk and jackass. One defining feature is that a wise-acre enjoys comedy more than anything, and therefore an insult comic or a practical joker would be called wise-acres. It has fallen into disuse recently, but it's still there.

Yeah, Tom's a real wise-acre. He screwed the top of the salt-lid off and when I went to pour it it fell off.